Dyad PageYou can find all the components of our projects from the URI Digi Lit Institute at the link to our Wiki Space found at the Dyad Page.
Cool Tool Review & Application Plan My favorite tool was Animoto which we learned at Hiller Spires’s presentation. With Animoto you can create re-capping videos of lessons, events, learning happenings in the classroom, and with the faculty. Then you can share them, which brings people together to reflect on our experiences through images, texts, and music. It’s easy to use, intuitive, and apparently available for educators for free, but I haven’t explored that yet. My project this week was utilizing iMovie, but for our lesson (which had the purpose of kids creating book trailers that motivate their peers to try new books) Animoto would also be a great tool to use and it would probably be easier for the younger children. Children can share information by making Animoto videos. For example, I could incorporate it into the process of introducing each other at the beginning of the school year. I would love for children to fill out an “About Me” questionnaire with prompts on what to include, and then present the Animoto to the class. I could also use Animoto for having student’s present reports or biography projects. I previously had done a lesson where students researched information on the daily life of ancient Egyptians. The children created books by selecting facts and information and compiling pages with those facts and pictures they had found. To promote digital literacy, I could essentially do the same lesson using computers and utilizing Animoto. Actually it would’ve made that whole process more concise, more organized, and easier to share. Which brings me to my last note- Animoto would make parental and faculty communication so much stronger. Everyone could see the great things were doing in the class! I could also have a twitter for the class and tweet out the videos!
My application plan outlines how I can use Animoto with 2nd -4th graders to have them create introductory “About Me” videos, in which they are reflecting on experiences while learning to utilize digital text and media resources. I think this would be a great way to kick off the year and get to know one another and also start a classroom blog or website.
1.Reflecting back to the start of the week, I see now that I had a limited view on what qualified as digital literacies. I guess because I hadn’t thought about the possibilities behind the digital “media” that I actually already knew about. As I’ve discussed with others here, I grew up with much of this and it’s kind of natural to me. However, the problem was that I never thought about them in this bigger picture. The possibilities are endless with some of these tools that were always right under my nose. Evernote, Wiki Hang Outs and Wiki Docs? I never thought about how Wiki’s could be used to facilitate learning in the classroom. I never put Wiki websites and the classroom together. This week I got to see how all these different programs on my computer could be used in the classroom and reflect how I could use them. Actually, I regret not discovering them before because I would’ve liked to utilize these for lesson this past year. iMovie, Garage Band, and Evernote were some programs I’ve had on my computer but did not use to their full potential at all. Then there are the websites, the cool tools that were free and available on the internet….this whole time. I had heard of them, but why didn’t I use them? Well, I guess I was scared or found them daunting. But at the Institute, we discovered how easy they were. How it only took 5 minutes to create a beautiful product on Animoto or Storybird. So, because it was daunting and because I had mixed feelings about the inherent goodness of technology (identifying with points touched by Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk), I didn’t acknowledge or think about how I could be using tech like this.
However, after this week I’ve learned that this goes beyond me. This is about the children’s future. If they are going to be literate people in society right now, today, they also need to be digitally literate…because being literate today -being able to participate in communicating effectively through reading and writing- entails being able to be digitally literate. It is the way we communicate and share information today. Digitally. So for me, this means i need to “be a responsible risk taker” and just “dive in”. Otherwise, it is a disservice to the children not to educate them and prepare them for their futures.
2. What it means to be literate is changing. How we define what it means to be a literate person is transforming because current and emerging technologies have brought a limitless world of texts and media that people need to now be literate in as well. Meaning, people need to be effective readers, writers, and communicators- in this big new complex place that is the digital world. As I said, I had a limited view of what digital literacy was but it has evolved greatly by taking this week to get educated about it. The bigger picture became much clearer by just being informed by the speakers here and the conversations we’ve shared- in the physical setting of the college building, but also at the same time within all the digital settings in which we were communicating. To me, digital literacy is just one component that makes up LITERACY- like a puzzle piece of literacy.
3. This week I was thinking about how digital media texts, tools, and technologies can be used for enhancing how I could teach content area subjects. These tools make it easier to integrate the content areas with teaching literacy in reading and writing as well as teaching digital literacy. All of these digital tools will make the learning process more visual and interactive and in turn more engaging to teach those subjects, such as history, science, and of course as an art person- art. I was particularly thinking about how to teach visual arts using these practices. It’s all related! Out of all the educators out there trying to integrate digital literacy into their curriculum- where do art teachers fit in? And I had this conversation with several of the participants at the institute. We discussed how art teachers could collaborate in these projects and work with the classroom teachers to integrate the classroom curriculum with the art curriculum, with the digital tools. It would enhance the way we can teach the creative process and give kids the opportunity to express themselves in new ways and to CREATE using new mediums. This week I imagined the possibilities of teaching all the visual arts using the tools we learned. Whether it be using the tools in the instructional aspect or having the students use the tools to create an artistic and expressive product.
4. A. COLLABORATION- I learned the importance of collaboration. I plan to collaborate with other teachers, share my ideas, and definitely not keep my techie strategies to myself! I know that I must share with the other teachers and teach them what I know. It’s another disservice to the children to not be collaborating and not all be giving them these opportunities. Because if we work together and we are all integrating digital lit into what we teach- think of how the kids will benefit. They will become literate in these areas so much quickly, so much more proficiently, and become much more skilled.
B. MODELING- I learned the importance of modeling how to create and interact digitally. We must model in a variety of ways. For example, show what’s expected, in terms of ethics, when creating a digital footprint, researching information, or exploring the web. Model how to actually use the tools over and over again because it makes it simpler for the students to see how to do it and then practice. I know I didn’t know how to use some of these tools before I came to the institute because I had never seen them actually being used. I hadn’t seen the simple process behind some of these. Also, modeling goes for instructing my colleagues and other teachers as well because often they need to see how simple it is to feel comfortable trying something new.
5. Some concerns are still pressing the matter of teaching digital literacy and using these tools. The first being professional development. There isn’t sufficient enough professional development opportunities for faculty after talking to other participants here. But I’ve come to the conclusion, as I’ve said, that you need to learn by doing. So even if there isn’t sufficient proficient development or training offered at our work places, we can teach other. Now someone like me who has learned all of these new strategies should go back and share, share, share! If I was employed as a full time teacher apart of a team, I would be so excited to go back and share with my friends and co workers. I would invite everyone to come hang out and share ideas about what we could utilize from this digital toolbox or just share out on Twitter.
Also (and the point may be mute because we’re still in the beginning stages of becoming a digitally literate society) another concern would be access to technology for both students and for teachers. Limited access makes for everyone being on all different levels of technology proficiency. So, basically people who have had access to tech their whole lives might be a pro, while others who may have never had a smartphone or a computer might not even be able to type or do simple searches. It makes it difficult to teach using some of these ideas because you need to go back to square one with some students and then not others.
Which brings me to my last note that which I’ve derived from my own experiences and talking to other teachers here. There’s the concern about the press for time. Where will teachers find the time to fit this when there’s so much expected of them already? This concern often prevents teachers from delving into all this.
6. Digital Literacy Into Context: Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk blatantly reminds me of what I fear most about technology. I contemplate whether or not it is good for society. Sure there are wonderful aspects, first and foremost being that it connects us. But Turkle, brings up that ironic point that people often lose sight of: although technology connects us, it disconnects us. The phrase “connected but alone” seeks to explain this phenomenon. Although we communicate with technology and we let it take us to new places, which is truly great and often profound, it seems takes us to places we shouldn’t want to go. In fact, it has the power to remove us completely from the real world. Both, Turkle and Rushkoff give similar explanations as to what makes “going in our phones” so appealing and addictive. For one, social media allows us to control who we want to be. For example, through phones and computers we can control how we converse. Since we are not immediately face to face with people “online” we can plan what we want to say and how we say it. We can perfect our conversation in as much time as we please before sending it off to be received. This ends up making people less skillful communicators in the real world, in real time. Another example of this “content control” is that we control how we are viewed by others. We present our personalities online after editing, deleting, and perfecting ourselves until we can feel comfortable and feel “I look cool” or “I look smart.” “Cleaning ourselves up,” as Turkle calls it, is stifling our ability to have real, live, genuine human relationships. These notions can make you weary of technology and scared to embrace it. But I think the solution to these problems lies in education. At the URI Summer Institute, I learned the importance and the need to properly educate people and our youth to be competent in using technologies for the better. Meaning, we need to be able to use technology as a tool that we respect and only use when needed, instead of allowing it to become an extension of ourselves.
Generating Questions: The Bowker and Wiggins articles were informative and useful pieces that certainly can aid in developing a plan for putting digital literacy into action in the classroom. The articles explain questioning in depth and why it is so important to influence our students to be reflective thinkers and always question, important characteristics of digitally literate students. The Bowker article particularly connected to my life in that we have recently adapted Common Core, which reiterates the idea that students must constantly be formulating meaningful questions about what they are reading. So Bowker puts this into perspectives in explaining how to teach students to ask questions and why. When students are given opportunities to ask questions, they are pushing their thinking beyond simply answering questions. It requires intellect and focus-driven inquiry to ask deeper questions. Also we as teachers must provide a safe and comforting environment that warmly welcomes questions because students have often had painful experiences answering and asking questions. But it should never be that way in a classroom. Teachers must welcome, acknowledge, and praise questions with positive reinforcement so that children can discover the value of always questioning.
Instructional Strategies: These three articles offer useful pedagogical instructional strategies to support and improve students’ ability to read and comprehend texts. As a future literacy specialist, I found these to be great resources that I will be able to revisit and reflect upon as I spend my next year in grad school. All the articles offer real, tried and true strategies that I could definitely put into practice. Julie Coiros’s “Theory Into Practice” article outlines a comprehensive approach to teaching students how to read online information. I can’t believe they don’t teach you these digital teaching strategies in pre-service teacher training these days. The Harris and Hofer TPACK article explains the intersection of teacher’s knowledge of curriculum content, general pedagogies, and technologies. It is a great resource in that it provides sample activities divided into several categories that all utilize possible technologies. It also outlines how to combine said instructional strategies, activities, and technologies in forming units.
Hiller Spires’s article reiterates the process of project-based inquiry much similar to the approach we took at the Digital Literacy Summer Institute. It is certainly a successful approach to PBI. Spires provides 5- phase plan adaptable to all ages that is both concise and comprehensible. I can see this plan working for teachers to collaborate with each other to implement it, creating something such as a thematic unit project. These strategies can help teachers in teaching students to authentically use these tools, empower them as readers and writers, and prepare them for the life they’ll lead.
Next Steps: To those who are not able to attend this the Digital Literacy Summer Institute, I would say read Renee Hobbs’s plan of action! This paper really summarizes the issues at hand where education and media literacy meet. It was definitely a motivating paper, extremely informative, and very much precise. I honestly wish I read this before coming to the institute and I also wish every pre-service teacher would be required to read it. Hobbs pinholes the problem we face with the rise of digital literacy, proves its utmost importance to the fate of education, society, and our children’s future, then outlines a plan to resolve the issue. I think the most significant point that I gleaned from the paper was the importance of working together as a society to create such change. People need to work together as a community, as well as at a federal level, to put these ideas into action. Renee Hobbs discussed much of this over the course of the week, empowering us from the moment we walked in that are leaders with the power and ability to make a change.
As a current graduate student, and (hopefully) a soon to be teacher, I plan to share Renee’s literature and projects with colleagues and educators. I also plan to share the projects that we have all created at the summer institute because they turned out to be so diverse and so intriguing. Like Renee said in her paper, it is our duty to take social action by working both individually and collaboratively to share knowledge and solve problems by participating as a member of a community. So what I truly gleaned from this paper and the entirety of the week was the importance of working together to make big things happen.
7. Conclusion: If I had one more day at the institute I think I would’ve liked to have more casual opportunities to socialize and network with other teachers and professionals (similar to the first night at the restaurant). As a teacher who is still in the very beginning stages of my journey, I feel like I learned so much by hearing from others and learning about their experiences. I got a lot of good advice and tips about instructional strategies, tools to use, administration woes, the job search, and much more. So I think I would’ve enjoyed having even more time to talk, apart from during the short lunch and snack breaks. I also think it would be a good idea to find space outdoors to take some of talks to, just so participants are up and moving in the fresh air and able to remain attentive and proactive about the day.
At the institute I discovered how Twitter is being used in the world of education. Now I realize the purpose of Twitter and its value! I am learning all of the time now from the informative Tweets I’m following. I have used Twitter to connect with my school district, which actually just got a twitter and some of the teachers who recently connected too. Although I am but a student and a per diem sub, I feel the importance of remaining connected to the “going ons” at my school and in the educational world.
Lastly, I believe that pre-service teachers need to be at this program because they are the future of education. They need to learn from these experienced professionals, as I have, and veteran teachers need to learn from pre-service teachers.
Cool Tool Review & Application Plan
My favorite tool was Animoto which we learned at Hiller Spires’s presentation. With Animoto you can create re-capping videos of lessons, events, learning happenings in the classroom, and with the faculty. Then you can share them, which brings people together to reflect on our experiences through images, texts, and music. It’s easy to use, intuitive, and apparently available for educators for free, but I haven’t explored that yet. My project this week was utilizing iMovie, but for our lesson (which had the purpose of kids creating book trailers that motivate their peers to try new books) Animoto would also be a great tool to use and it would probably be easier for the younger children.
Children can share information by making Animoto videos. For example, I could incorporate it into the process of introducing each other at the beginning of the school year. I would love for children to fill out an “About Me” questionnaire with prompts on what to include, and then present the Animoto to the class. I could also use Animoto for having student’s present reports or biography projects. I previously had done a lesson where students researched information on the daily life of ancient Egyptians. The children created books by selecting facts and information and compiling pages with those facts and pictures they had found. To promote digital literacy, I could essentially do the same lesson using computers and utilizing Animoto. Actually it would’ve made that whole process more concise, more organized, and easier to share.
Which brings me to my last note- Animoto would make parental and faculty communication so much stronger. Everyone could see the great things were doing in the class! I could also have a twitter for the class and tweet out the videos!
My application plan outlines how I can use Animoto with 2nd -4th graders to have them create introductory “About Me” videos, in which they are reflecting on experiences while learning to utilize digital text and media resources. I think this would be a great way to kick off the year and get to know one another and also start a classroom blog or website.
Check out my flower model:
Final Reflection Questions
1. Reflecting back to the start of the week, I see now that I had a limited view on what qualified as digital literacies. I guess because I hadn’t thought about the possibilities behind the digital “media” that I actually already knew about. As I’ve discussed with others here, I grew up with much of this and it’s kind of natural to me. However, the problem was that I never thought about them in this bigger picture. The possibilities are endless with some of these tools that were always right under my nose. Evernote, Wiki Hang Outs and Wiki Docs? I never thought about how Wiki’s could be used to facilitate learning in the classroom. I never put Wiki websites and the classroom together. This week I got to see how all these different programs on my computer could be used in the classroom and reflect how I could use them. Actually, I regret not discovering them before because I would’ve liked to utilize these for lesson this past year. iMovie, Garage Band, and Evernote were some programs I’ve had on my computer but did not use to their full potential at all. Then there are the websites, the cool tools that were free and available on the internet….this whole time. I had heard of them, but why didn’t I use them? Well, I guess I was scared or found them daunting. But at the Institute, we discovered how easy they were. How it only took 5 minutes to create a beautiful product on Animoto or Storybird. So, because it was daunting and because I had mixed feelings about the inherent goodness of technology (identifying with points touched by Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk), I didn’t acknowledge or think about how I could be using tech like this.
However, after this week I’ve learned that this goes beyond me. This is about the children’s future. If they are going to be literate people in society right now, today, they also need to be digitally literate…because being literate today -being able to participate in communicating effectively through reading and writing- entails being able to be digitally literate. It is the way we communicate and share information today. Digitally. So for me, this means i need to “be a responsible risk taker” and just “dive in”. Otherwise, it is a disservice to the children not to educate them and prepare them for their futures.
2. What it means to be literate is changing. How we define what it means to be a literate person is transforming because current and emerging technologies have brought a limitless world of texts and media that people need to now be literate in as well. Meaning, people need to be effective readers, writers, and communicators- in this big new complex place that is the digital world. As I said, I had a limited view of what digital literacy was but it has evolved greatly by taking this week to get educated about it. The bigger picture became much clearer by just being informed by the speakers here and the conversations we’ve shared- in the physical setting of the college building, but also at the same time within all the digital settings in which we were communicating. To me, digital literacy is just one component that makes up LITERACY- like a puzzle piece of literacy.
3. This week I was thinking about how digital media texts, tools, and technologies can be used for enhancing how I could teach content area subjects. These tools make it easier to integrate the content areas with teaching literacy in reading and writing as well as teaching digital literacy. All of these digital tools will make the learning process more visual and interactive and in turn more engaging to teach those subjects, such as history, science, and of course as an art person- art. I was particularly thinking about how to teach visual arts using these practices. It’s all related! Out of all the educators out there trying to integrate digital literacy into their curriculum- where do art teachers fit in? And I had this conversation with several of the participants at the institute. We discussed how art teachers could collaborate in these projects and work with the classroom teachers to integrate the classroom curriculum with the art curriculum, with the digital tools. It would enhance the way we can teach the creative process and give kids the opportunity to express themselves in new ways and to CREATE using new mediums. This week I imagined the possibilities of teaching all the visual arts using the tools we learned. Whether it be using the tools in the instructional aspect or having the students use the tools to create an artistic and expressive product.
4.
A. COLLABORATION- I learned the importance of collaboration. I plan to collaborate with other teachers, share my ideas, and definitely not keep my techie strategies to myself! I know that I must share with the other teachers and teach them what I know. It’s another disservice to the children to not be collaborating and not all be giving them these opportunities. Because if we work together and we are all integrating digital lit into what we teach- think of how the kids will benefit. They will become literate in these areas so much quickly, so much more proficiently, and become much more skilled.
B. MODELING- I learned the importance of modeling how to create and interact digitally. We must model in a variety of ways. For example, show what’s expected, in terms of ethics, when creating a digital footprint, researching information, or exploring the web. Model how to actually use the tools over and over again because it makes it simpler for the students to see how to do it and then practice. I know I didn’t know how to use some of these tools before I came to the institute because I had never seen them actually being used. I hadn’t seen the simple process behind some of these. Also, modeling goes for instructing my colleagues and other teachers as well because often they need to see how simple it is to feel comfortable trying something new.
5. Some concerns are still pressing the matter of teaching digital literacy and using these tools. The first being professional development. There isn’t sufficient enough professional development opportunities for faculty after talking to other participants here. But I’ve come to the conclusion, as I’ve said, that you need to learn by doing. So even if there isn’t sufficient proficient development or training offered at our work places, we can teach other. Now someone like me who has learned all of these new strategies should go back and share, share, share! If I was employed as a full time teacher apart of a team, I would be so excited to go back and share with my friends and co workers. I would invite everyone to come hang out and share ideas about what we could utilize from this digital toolbox or just share out on Twitter.
Also (and the point may be mute because we’re still in the beginning stages of becoming a digitally literate society) another concern would be access to technology for both students and for teachers. Limited access makes for everyone being on all different levels of technology proficiency. So, basically people who have had access to tech their whole lives might be a pro, while others who may have never had a smartphone or a computer might not even be able to type or do simple searches. It makes it difficult to teach using some of these ideas because you need to go back to square one with some students and then not others.
Which brings me to my last note that which I’ve derived from my own experiences and talking to other teachers here. There’s the concern about the press for time. Where will teachers find the time to fit this when there’s so much expected of them already? This concern often prevents teachers from delving into all this.
6.
Digital Literacy Into Context:
Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk blatantly reminds me of what I fear most about technology. I contemplate whether or not it is good for society. Sure there are wonderful aspects, first and foremost being that it connects us. But Turkle, brings up that ironic point that people often lose sight of: although technology connects us, it disconnects us. The phrase “connected but alone” seeks to explain this phenomenon. Although we communicate with technology and we let it take us to new places, which is truly great and often profound, it seems takes us to places we shouldn’t want to go. In fact, it has the power to remove us completely from the real world. Both, Turkle and Rushkoff give similar explanations as to what makes “going in our phones” so appealing and addictive. For one, social media allows us to control who we want to be. For example, through phones and computers we can control how we converse. Since we are not immediately face to face with people “online” we can plan what we want to say and how we say it. We can perfect our conversation in as much time as we please before sending it off to be received. This ends up making people less skillful communicators in the real world, in real time. Another example of this “content control” is that we control how we are viewed by others. We present our personalities online after editing, deleting, and perfecting ourselves until we can feel comfortable and feel “I look cool” or “I look smart.” “Cleaning ourselves up,” as Turkle calls it, is stifling our ability to have real, live, genuine human relationships.
These notions can make you weary of technology and scared to embrace it. But I think the solution to these problems lies in education. At the URI Summer Institute, I learned the importance and the need to properly educate people and our youth to be competent in using technologies for the better. Meaning, we need to be able to use technology as a tool that we respect and only use when needed, instead of allowing it to become an extension of ourselves.
Generating Questions:
The Bowker and Wiggins articles were informative and useful pieces that certainly can aid in developing a plan for putting digital literacy into action in the classroom. The articles explain questioning in depth and why it is so important to influence our students to be reflective thinkers and always question, important characteristics of digitally literate students. The Bowker article particularly connected to my life in that we have recently adapted Common Core, which reiterates the idea that students must constantly be formulating meaningful questions about what they are reading. So Bowker puts this into perspectives in explaining how to teach students to ask questions and why. When students are given opportunities to ask questions, they are pushing their thinking beyond simply answering questions. It requires intellect and focus-driven inquiry to ask deeper questions. Also we as teachers must provide a safe and comforting environment that warmly welcomes questions because students have often had painful experiences answering and asking questions. But it should never be that way in a classroom. Teachers must welcome, acknowledge, and praise questions with positive reinforcement so that children can discover the value of always questioning.
Instructional Strategies:
These three articles offer useful pedagogical instructional strategies to support and improve students’ ability to read and comprehend texts. As a future literacy specialist, I found these to be great resources that I will be able to revisit and reflect upon as I spend my next year in grad school. All the articles offer real, tried and true strategies that I could definitely put into practice. Julie Coiros’s “Theory Into Practice” article outlines a comprehensive approach to teaching students how to read online information. I can’t believe they don’t teach you these digital teaching strategies in pre-service teacher training these days. The Harris and Hofer TPACK article explains the intersection of teacher’s knowledge of curriculum content, general pedagogies, and technologies. It is a great resource in that it provides sample activities divided into several categories that all utilize possible technologies. It also outlines how to combine said instructional strategies, activities, and technologies in forming units.
Hiller Spires’s article reiterates the process of project-based inquiry much similar to the approach we took at the Digital Literacy Summer Institute. It is certainly a successful approach to PBI. Spires provides 5- phase plan adaptable to all ages that is both concise and comprehensible. I can see this plan working for teachers to collaborate with each other to implement it, creating something such as a thematic unit project. These strategies can help teachers in teaching students to authentically use these tools, empower them as readers and writers, and prepare them for the life they’ll lead.
Next Steps:
To those who are not able to attend this the Digital Literacy Summer Institute, I would say read Renee Hobbs’s plan of action! This paper really summarizes the issues at hand where education and media literacy meet. It was definitely a motivating paper, extremely informative, and very much precise. I honestly wish I read this before coming to the institute and I also wish every pre-service teacher would be required to read it. Hobbs pinholes the problem we face with the rise of digital literacy, proves its utmost importance to the fate of education, society, and our children’s future, then outlines a plan to resolve the issue. I think the most significant point that I gleaned from the paper was the importance of working together as a society to create such change. People need to work together as a community, as well as at a federal level, to put these ideas into action. Renee Hobbs discussed much of this over the course of the week, empowering us from the moment we walked in that are leaders with the power and ability to make a change.
As a current graduate student, and (hopefully) a soon to be teacher, I plan to share Renee’s literature and projects with colleagues and educators. I also plan to share the projects that we have all created at the summer institute because they turned out to be so diverse and so intriguing. Like Renee said in her paper, it is our duty to take social action by working both individually and collaboratively to share knowledge and solve problems by participating as a member of a community. So what I truly gleaned from this paper and the entirety of the week was the importance of working together to make big things happen.
7. Conclusion:
If I had one more day at the institute I think I would’ve liked to have more casual opportunities to socialize and network with other teachers and professionals (similar to the first night at the restaurant). As a teacher who is still in the very beginning stages of my journey, I feel like I learned so much by hearing from others and learning about their experiences. I got a lot of good advice and tips about instructional strategies, tools to use, administration woes, the job search, and much more. So I think I would’ve enjoyed having even more time to talk, apart from during the short lunch and snack breaks. I also think it would be a good idea to find space outdoors to take some of talks to, just so participants are up and moving in the fresh air and able to remain attentive and proactive about the day.
At the institute I discovered how Twitter is being used in the world of education. Now I realize the purpose of Twitter and its value! I am learning all of the time now from the informative Tweets I’m following. I have used Twitter to connect with my school district, which actually just got a twitter and some of the teachers who recently connected too. Although I am but a student and a per diem sub, I feel the importance of remaining connected to the “going ons” at my school and in the educational world.
Lastly, I believe that pre-service teachers need to be at this program because they are the future of education. They need to learn from these experienced professionals, as I have, and veteran teachers need to learn from pre-service teachers.